Spiritual Meditations

Joseph P. Carter

America, in
fact, is founded on the idea of purpose: life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. One election cycle after another, Americans rally around candidates
personifying deeply rooted ideals of what our country is supposed to be. But,
where does purpose come from? What is it? For over two millenniums, discerning
our purpose in the universe has been a primary task of philosophers....

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

Human beings
are now waging war against life itself as we continue to destroy not just
individual lives, local populations and entire species in vast numbers but also
destroy the ecological systems that make life on Earth possible. By doing this
we are now accelerating the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history and
virtually eliminating any prospect of human survival....

Tabish Khair

Tabish Khair

That is why
thinking atheists cannot do away with the concept of god. That is also why the
religious cannot claim to know god. We become human in exactly that space where
we are not animals (whose possibility of knowledge is restricted to what they
already know) and where we are never ‘god’ (whose possibility of knowledge is
complete and infinite)....

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

He
successfully applied his strategic understanding of nonviolence to the Indian
independence struggle against British colonial rule. But while Gandhi was happy
to acknowledge his debt to those who had gone before, he was not shy in
proclaiming the importance of finding new ways forward: ‘If we are to make
progress, we must not repeat history but make new history. We must add to the
inheritance left by our ancestors.’....

Yoginder S. Sikand, New Age Islam

Yoginder S. Sikand, New Age Islam

If, as all religions tell us, the purpose of human life is to evolve
spiritually so that we lead a God-oriented life in this world and are suitably
prepared for the world that comes after death, such parents, by completely
neglecting their children’s spiritual needs, are doing them the most terrible
disservice. It is nothing short of criminal. After all, what could be worse
than being complicit in denying one’s own child the possibility of fulfilling
the very purpose of its life, of its very creation? What more damage could one
do than to spiritually cripple one’s own child so badly that it ruins its life
in this world and in the life after death, too?...

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

Why then should those under genocidal assault expect supportive action
from the UN or international community in general? The factors which drive
these manifestations of violence serve a diverse range of geopolitical
interests in each case, and are usually highly profitable into the bargain.
What hope justice or even decency in such circumstances?....

Robert J. Burrowes, Ne Age Islam

Robert J. Burrowes, Ne Age Islam

Human beings have a brilliantly diverse and complex array of emotions
and hence potential emotional responses as a result of the evolutionary
pressures that shaped the emergence of hominids over millions of years. An
extraordinary emotional capacity is one of the defining features of our
humanity and, I would argue, far more important than any other feature such as
our intellectual capacity....

Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Major figures in Islamic intellectual tradition are distinguished by
their comprehensive review of existing state of art affairs, ability to invoke
the First Principles, keen insight on zeitgeist of their age and great
moral-spiritual credentials. They are ultimately valued not in themselves but
in leading us or connecting us to the Fountainhead of Ilm/gnosis. Popular
writers/preachers may often suffer from certain ideological prejudices and
don’t command requisite qualifications to make accessible the best of the
legacy of Elders. It is sin against intelligence to debate and regurgitate what
is cheaply or popularly available. Likes of Ibn Sina, Mulla Sadra, Anwar Shah,
Heidegger, Whitehead are not/can’t be popular....

Joao Silva Jordao

Paradoxically, instead of promoting an intelligent criticism of
religion, new atheism ends up generating hordes of theologically and
spiritually alienated people who are even more likely to be recruited by cults and
religions, and who will thereafter vehemently deny that they are so much as a
little bit influenced by religion. They simultaneously refuse to study
religion, whilst denying that they may be under the influence of underlying
religious ideas. But how can you know, if you don’t even care to study how
religion truly works?...

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

If one’s mind is constantly directed towards
God, then one will repeatedly experience new manifestations of His glory; time
and time again a new divine light will shine on him. Just as God’s virtues are
interminable, so a believer’s search for knowledge of God is a journey that
never comes to an end…..

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

One inevitable outcome of the phenomenal violence we all suffer as
children is that most of us live in a state of delusion throughout our lives.
This makes it extraordinarily difficult for accurate information, including
vital information about the endangered state of our world and how to respond
appropriately, to penetrate the typical human mind. 'Phenomenal violence?' you
might ask. 'All of us?' you wonder. Yes, although, tragically, most of this
violence goes unrecognised because it is not usually identified as such....

Mamdouh AlMuhaini

Mamdouh AlMuhaini

Each one of us is born with pure human identity. However, this identity
does not last long. We are labelled with all the religious, sectarian, ethnic
and national identities that bury this original identity until we become
completely unaware of it. You see yourself through the prism of religion or
sect, and naturally weaken the original sense of being spontaneously connected
to others. The sectarian strife that we are continuously witnessing is mainly
due to this acute and profound classification since childhood.....

Livemint

What else would explain the Taliban giving a
go-ahead to men’s cricket in Afghanistan but not to women’s? Even the
green-lighting of men’s cricket had more to do with the sheer popularity of the
sport in Afghanistan than the fact that the gentleman’s game, unlike football,
which the Taliban disapproves of, doesn’t let the knees show because of
full-length trousers, as the Taliban would argue....

Mohammed Farooq, New Age Islam

We are in this world to please God, and we can please God through
serving God’s creatures—humans as well as others—who are in need and are
suffering. Helping others, as I understand it, is not an end in itself, but a
means to please and serve God. This is something that people of different
religions would, I think, readily agree with....

Mahmoud Ahmad

Mahmoud Ahmad

And in another verse the Qur’an says, “Your Lord has ordered you to
worship none except Him, and to be good to your parents. If either or both of
them attain old age with you, do not say: “Fie on you”, nor rebuke them, but
speak to them with words of respect. And lower to them the wing of humbleness
out of mercy and say: ‘My Lord, be merciful to them, as they raised me since I
was little.”...

Pakistan Observer

Instead, fix your eyes on God above. And as we see only Him in front, we ourselves we ourselves will imbue the purity He has. Then look back and see that others who are behind, don’t focus on you but onto the One whom you continue pointing out to them. Don’t follow human gods or try to be one yourself..!...

The Guardian, UK

The prospect of a life infinitely prolonged becomes after some time the prospect of infinite futility. It’s often said that heaven would be extremely boring because all the interesting people end up in hell. But even the company of saints would be preferable to that of the disciples of Ayn Rand.....

The Muslim Vibe

To those that are struggling to figure things out, I’m here to tell you that you will get through it, just like I did. Unfortunately, what we study doesn’t guarantee that we will end up doing it and enjoying it. Keep reaching out, keep looking, keep researching and you will find what really calls out to you.....

Ali Jabbar

The reality is
that it is often only in silence that we can truly think, that we can truly
reflect and that we can truly be alive. This is why the best moments in our
lives often leave us speechless, for nothing captures the splendour and wonder
of our best times like silence. Silence reflects the serenity of the soul; one
at peace with God, his people and surroundings. Silence is the trait of the
humble, those who comprehend their frailties and limits, their ignorance and
weakness, their death and life. In silence, the signs of God are made manifest
on this earth....

Maha Al-Mutairi

The most
interesting part of the law of attraction is that it was first mentioned in
Islam when God said: “I am as my servant expects of me, so if he thinks good of
me then he will have it, and if he thinks evil of me then he will have it.”
Later, as science developed, the theory on the law of attraction came out but
it was first mentioned in Islam....

Khadija Abdelhamid

Khadija Abdelhamid

I want you to
remember you are very, very special and there isn’t anybody in this world that
could ever replace you, your talents and most importantly, your story. Your
story is your armour, your strength and your message to the world and you
should never ever allow someone else’s opinion of you become your reality...

Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

When prophets
leave us, the poets preserve their sacred aura for us. Imagine how poor
religious life would be without hymns and songs of poets. We can live without
food for some time, without families, without priests, without scientists but
we can’t live without poetry. Poets defend us against demons within and without
and if we could heed them we wouldn’t need armies.....

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam

Importantly,
the rapist needs this emotional support too. They have a long and painful
childhood from which they need a great deal of help to recover. It is this
healing that will enable them to accurately identify the perpetrators of the
violence they suffered and about whom they have so many suppressed (and now
projected) feelings which need to be felt and safely expressed. You need a lot
of empathy and the capacity to listen to address violence in this context meaningfully
and effectively. You also need it to raise compassionate and powerful children
in the first place.....

Philip Fernbach and Steven Sloman

This is
especially true of divisive political issues. Your mind cannot master and
retain sufficiently detailed knowledge about many of them. You must rely on
your community. But if you are not aware that you are piggybacking on the
knowledge of others, it can lead to hubris....

Harbans Mukhia

Harbans Mukhia

The notion of
the absolute and therefore single Truth was inherited by Islam which announced
that while partial truths had been revealed earlier through the agency of
prophecy, Muhammad was the last in the line of prophets and therefore the
single ultimate Truth was embedded in the Quran. Indeed, a synonym of God in
Islam is the Truth (al-Haq). The slightest deviation from any word of the Quran
was tantamount to Bida’t (heresy) and strictly unlawful. It also imbibed the
concept of the Day of Judgment from Christianity and therefore the other
attributes of the singularity of Truth and its inevitable triumph over
falsehoods, termed Kufr, with the same meaning and intensity as infidelity....